Miguel Ángel López has taken to Instagram to reveal he faced an out-of-competition anti-doping test while on holiday with his family at Walt Disney World in Florida, despite currently being provisionally suspended from competition by the UCI and under investigation for potential anti-doping rule violation.
The Colombian climber was the target of an investigation conducted by the International Testing Agency (ITA), who obtained evidence from Operación Ilex gathered by the Spanish Guardia Civil and the Spanish Anti-Doping Organisation for the UCI.
In July, the UCI provisionally suspended López for a potential anti-doping rule violation for “use and possession of a prohibited substance in the weeks prior to the Giro d’Italia 2022”, but he is still part of the rider pool for out-of-competition anti-doping tests.
López has always insisted that he is innocent and Marcos Maynar, the doctor at the centre of the Spanish doping investigation, has also denied giving banned substances to López.
López raced for Astana Qazaqstan before suddenly abandoning the 2022 Giro d’Italia after three stages. The team eventually terminated Lopez’s contract in December and he signed with Medellin-EPM, going on to win the Vuelta a San Juan Internacional and a number of other races in 2023 before his UCI suspension in July.
The UCI investigation is still ongoing but López still has to be available for anti-doping tests, even if he is on vacation in Florida.
“I am surprised by something that just happened to me this morning,” López said in a message on Instagram, lamenting about the slow speed of the UCI investigation.
“I had not wanted to say this in public, but it is time because a long time has passed. Everyone knows the situation I’m going through, the provisional suspension that the UCI has had on me for almost 5 months, and that as of today I know absolutely nothing about my future.
“Just like now in the Disney hotel, I have collaborated, I have done the things they have asked of me. I have collaborated with information, with controls, because I have passed many.
“If they take the trouble to come here (to do the anti-doping test), let them take the same trouble to solve the issue for me and expedite me, investigate and give me the green light to do what I like because I am not hiding anything and I’m clean, I have nothing to do with it.”
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